Learned medicine is the European medical tradition in the Early Modern period, when it experienced the tension between the texts derived from ancient Greek medicine, particularly by followers of the teachings attributed to

Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of ...

and those of

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus ( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often Anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Considered to be one of ...

vs. the newer theories of

natural philosophy Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior throu ...

spurred on by Renaissance humanistic studies, the religious

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

and the establishment of scientific societies. The Renaissance principle of ''" ad fontes"'' as applied to Galen sought to establish better texts of his writings, free from later accretions from Arabic-derived texts and texts of medieval Latin. This search for better texts was influential in the early 16th century. Historians use the term medical humanism to define this textual activity, pursued for its own sake. Renaissance C14 Füllmaurer Leonhart Fuchs

Renaissance C14 Füllmaurer Leonhart Fuchs

Learned medicine centred on the ''practica'', a genre of Latin texts based on description of diseases and their treatment (

nosology Nosology () is the branch of medical science that deals with the classification of diseases. Fully classifying a medical condition requires knowing its cause (and that there is only one cause), the effects it has on the body, the symptoms that ...

). Its interests were less in the abstract reasoning of medieval medicine and in the tradition of

Avicenna Ibn Sina ( fa, ابن سینا; 980 – June 1037 CE), commonly known in the West as Avicenna (), was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, philosophers, and writers of the Islamic G ...

, on which it was built, and instead it was based more on the diagnosis and treatment of particular diseases. ''Practica'', covering diagnosis and therapies, was contrasted with ''theorica'', which dealt with

physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

and abstract thought on health and illness. The tradition from Galen valued ''practica'' less than ''theorica'' concepts, but from the 15th century the status of ''practica'' in learned medicine rose. "Learned medicine" in this sense was also an academic discipline. It was taught in European universities, and its faculty had the same status as those of theology and law. Learned medicine is typically contrasted with the folk medicine of the period, but it has been argued that the distinction is not rigorous. Its Galenic teachings were challenged successively by

Paracelsianism Paracelsianism (also Paracelsism; German: ') was an early modern medical movement based on the theories and therapies of Paracelsus. It developed in the second half of the 16th century, during the decades following Paracelsus' death in 1541, an ...

and

Helmontianism Jan Baptist van Helmont (; ; 12 January 1580 – 30 December 1644) was a chemist, physiologist, and physician from Brussels. He worked during the years just after Paracelsus and the rise of iatrochemistry, and is sometimes considered to be ...

Learned medicine and syphilis

Around the year 1500 an issue for learned medicine was the nature of ''

morbus gallicus During the Imperial Period of Rome, disease was a devastating aspect of life. As the borders of the empire continuously expanded and the population steadily grew, cities in the Roman Empire were exposed to a multitude of diseases. There were a va ...

'', now identified as

venereal syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, an ...

Alessandro Benedetti Alessandro Benedetti (1450?–1512) was born in Parma, traveled and worked extensively in Greece and Crete, and worked as surgeon general of the Venetian army. His “Anatomice, or The History of the Human Body” is a descriptive anatomy in the ...

, in particular, advocated the line that it was a novel disease, not described in the traditional authorities. Niccolo Leoniceno conceded that in terms of symptoms it could not be identified as known to the ancients; but denied that novel diseases could exist.

Notes

{{Reflist History of medicine

Learned medicine and syphilis

See also

Notes